Labs

Localization Lab

Making internet freedom tools available in new languages

Since OTF’s inception, a major concern of the Internet freedom community has been delays in tool-localization, e.g. making a tool that can be adopted in one country relevant and appropriate for another culture.

While a tool may be secure, it is of limited use if it does not reach broad adoption, which is largely dependent on tool availability in a given user’s native language. Since OTF’s focus is global, supporting localization efforts has been key to expanding the reach of OTF-funded projects.

Prohibitive costs and limited availability of professional translation are two of the biggest hurdles to overcome when deploying Internet freedom tools globally. With continuous updates to software, recurring costs can quickly exceed a project’s available resources. To address these challenges, OTF has partnered with SecondMuse and Transifex to create an Internet freedom localization hub built on Transifex’ online crowd-sourced translation platform. Volunteers from around the world can contribute translations and ensure that a given tool is available in their native language. This localization hub has dramatically expanded the potential user base of Internet freedom tools.

What you get

A vast community of translators

Scalable translation platform for large or small diverse projects

What you have to give

OTF’s Localization Lab is looking for translators and projects! To find out more about OTF’s Localization Lab and how we can help you and your project, send a message to [email protected]
Speakers of the following languages are particularly in demand: Arabic, Amharic, Burmese, Chinese, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Hindi, Khmer, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Tibetan, Turkish, Turkmen, Uyghur, Urdu, Uzbek, and Vietnamese.